Falling From Grace
by The Ending Sea
Summary: "When your soul finds another soul it can recognize even before the rest of you knows about it. The rest of you just feels sweaty and jumpy at first. And your souls get married without even meaning to-even if you can't be together for some reason in real life, your souls just go ahead and make the wedding plans." - Block's Dangerous Angels It's better than it sounds


**_Hello Everybody! This is The Ending Sea_**

**_Disclaimer: Unfortunately for me, I do not own Rise of the Guardians or it's characters. But they're still awesome! I simply own my O.C. _**

**_I got to thinking after reading many ROTG FanFiction that I should take a chance and write one of my own. _**

**_The Main Pairing(s) are: Bunnymund and O.C._**

**_ Jack Frost and Jamie Bennett_**

**_I really hope you enjoy my first chapter! _**

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**Chapter One: Linger**

_The golden spirit gazed down at the tiny bundle, smiling softly at the button nose, the small tuft of hair and sleepy brown eyes._

_It wasn't often that Sanderson "Sandman" ManSnoozie got to a hold a child._

_Sure there were connection he made with children in their dreams but being the Guardian of Dreams usually called for availability. The dream sand gave him some way to reach all the children without being too particular. It was a good thing; he didn't often feel hurt when they got older and had stopped believing._

_He would simply float onto the next child. It was like a sweater that you could simply throw on or off. Not that he wore sweaters._

_However, the sleeping babe that snuggled against his sand was not a piece of clothing. She had been special in his eyes. The first child that had ever touched his dream sand or let his dream sand touch. ._

_Here in his arms was a child he had been watching over since before continents were made and seas named._

_She was a darling little thing who, since Manny had first passed her into his arms, slept. It seemed like that's all she ever did. She never aged. Never cried. Never felt any sort of pain or discomfort. Just sweet dreams. It never really bothered him that she never woke or that she didn't speak back to him when he 'spoke'. It was just nice to have some company. Someone who listened._

_He was pretty sure that he could swing her around or toss her through the clouds with ease, never having to worry about waking the child._

_Yet now she was awake. Lace was awake._

_That was her name. Lace... Manny had said to protect her until the time she would wake._

_Then Sanderson would find her a family to live with.._

_He didn't understand why he couldn't be the baby's family._

_It wasn't often that Sanderson got this upset - he had learned over the years, no matter how many pictures or how many people - being upset was just something he could afford to be._

_Over his little Lace, he decided, he could be upset._

_The sleeping child had been in his custody all this time._

_The moment she had came into his life, Lace had become his everything. He had cared for her, sent her extra waves of sand to give her pleasant dreams. He had traced every inch of her birthmarks, that ran along her skull like a wreath of flowers, with the softest of touches. He cooed over her silent form and rocked her. He had never strayed too far from her._

_He deserved to watch her grow, to see her first steps, to laugh and cry with her._

_The babe glanced up with him, shivering in the October night winds. Her eyes, the darkest brown, he had ever seen, with a ring around the iris of a soft violet. He thought of how her memories wouldn't start with him, but another. Sanderson let his shoulders sag a little as he wrapped her tighter in her blanket._

_He had a duty to do. If Manny thought that this was the best way to protect this child, then it was the best._

_His was a father's selfishness, a child's jealousy which had no place in the matter._

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_**"I put her burnt bones in my mouth and swallowed them whole." -Cheryl Strayed's Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail**_

It had been about two years, now, since Jo Brae had became a permanent fixture in the Bennett childrens' lives and Jamie still couldn't get used to the female.

It wasn't that she was mean. Nor was it the fact that she was incompetent as a guardian. She just seemed to rub him the wrong way.

There were so many habits and items he could list of why he couldn't enjoy his guardian's company.

But the one that had stood out the most was the fact that she always seemed at ease, like nothing ever bothered her.

She was so frustratingly comfortable with everything. She knew herself. It was a difficult concept for Jaime himself to explain, but you could tell in the way she walked in her overly-baggy clothes and ran her soil-covered fingers through her too short hair.

Now Jolie didn't seem like the type of person that would even think of making people uncomfortable. However, she succeeded in doing made Jaime feel uneasy with her too-loud-laugh-snort, showing off the small gap between her two-front-teeth. The way she smelled of water and fresh-cut grass. The way she wriggled her nose in a bunny-like fashion. The way she openly declared that she was vegetarian who really liked pizza. The way she knew Sophie's favorite color. The way she knew that Jaime didn't like to be touched, without him having to say anything.

It made her feel familiar and lost to him all at the same time.

He couldn't understand for the life of him why Sophie loved the pumpkin so much. (Yes Pumpkin. Jamie never knew why he called her that. He just did.)

Currently they were baking coconut chocolate chip cookies. Jo's vegan friend recommended the recipe. Both of them had chocolate on their noses and were laughing.

"Do you think the Tooth Fairy will visit me tonight?" Sophie asked exictedly as she lifted herself onto a stool. Jaime rolled his eyes and shook his head. Only his sister would believe that the Tooth Fairy was still real at age ten.

"I think that only works when you lose a tooth, Soph!" Jo chuckled softly as she moved to wash her hands. Jaime paused his fingers mid-type. Why did Jolie insist on encouraging something like that!? Fairies, Tooth or otherwise didn't exist!

Jaime had lost his belief in the Guardians when he had turned fourteen.

"Hey kiddo, why don't you wash up for dinner and Jaime and I will set the table?"

"But what about the cookies?"

"They won't be ready till after we're done eating. Get a move on."

Jolie scooted the middle-school-er down the hall before reaching into the cabinets and pulling out the plates.

"Hey Jaime, can you put away your laptop? We're about to have dinner."

Jaime shut of his laptop and scowled softly making his way to the drawer filled with silverware.

"Hey Jo?"

"Yeah?"

"Why do you let her continue to believe in things like that?" He had asked her this question a million times.

"Like what?" Jo asked, as if genuinely surprised.

"Things like fairies, sandmen, and Santa Clause. They don't exist, they never existed. So why fill her with that bullshit?" He hadn't expected an answer. Jolie never answered him. She just gave him a pointed look and that would be the end the conversation.

"Don't displace childhood hopes and loves with your lost faith in God." Jolie responded softly as she went to set the plates on the table. Yet as softly as she had spoken, you could feel the knife in her word. The fine line between disappointment and anger. "I let her believe and hope in whatever she wants to. Who am I to take that away from her? Who are you to think that to take that from her? Just because you want to "grow up" doesn't mean that she has to."

Jaime stilled in his placing of the spoons. In her words he found his own regret. It hadn't stayed for long but for a few moments he wished that he could take back his words, to apologize. But his pride kept him silent.

"That sounds kind of fucked up when you think about it… But I stand by what I said. You've got to stop it Jaime. You've got to realize that it doesn't hurt to have childhood characters and fantasy. I mean you have anime and that's characters and fantasy. "

"You can prove Anime though!"

"Jaime for Sophie, a quarter and good dreams are all the proof she needs. Can't you just be happy that she holds such wonder and fun in those eyes of hers?"

Jaime flinched as he felt Jo's eyes linger on his face. It was another reason to feel uncomfortable - if you looked hard enough, you could spot the soft purple around the iris; the age of years that had yet to come written in the brown of her eyes.

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**_So what do you guys think?_**

**_I know it was pretty short but I promise longer chapters later on!_**

**_Please give me some Reviews! They actually help me a lot!_**


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